


Stay

by justjade



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, M/M, No Smut, POV Dean Winchester, Pre-Series, Pre-Stanford
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 07:42:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5120441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justjade/pseuds/justjade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's left for Stanford and Dean wishes there was something he could have done to make him stay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay

The night Sam left for Stanford Dean didn’t sleep a wink. He lay in the crummy motel bed and tried to ignore how roomy and cold and foreign it felt with only the one body in it. He listened to his father snoring softly four feet away and focused on keeping his own breaths deep and even.

Because every time he remembered his dad’s harsh voice telling Sam if he left then not to come back, and Sam’s choked out “You don’t have to worry about that,” - well, his eyes burned and his throat threatened to close up. He hated himself for having stayed silent, though he knew there was nothing he could have said. He wondered when things had gotten so fucked up between the three of them. Not that they’d ever been anywhere close to normal, but still, last night had reached a whole new level of dysfunction. How was he expected to just carry on after a blow like this? What the hell was he going to do without - And who was going to look after - 

The predawn light started to seep through the threadbare motel curtains and Dean decided he could no longer fight the rising panic lying down; he was going to scream if he didn’t get out of there now. Silently he got up and crossed the room, careful to avoid the empty beer cans that littered the floor, not sparing his sleeping father a glance as he tiptoed past the foot of his bed. He didn’t even bother to put on his shoes as he slipped outside.

And nearly wept at the sight of his baby brother sitting with his back to him not 5 feet away from the door, leaning slightly against the side of the impala’s bumper.

“Sam!” Dean breathed quietly, squatting down next to the impossibly large teenager and draping an arm around him, pulling him in tightly, “You came back, thank God, I thought you were really gone, that fight was so bad, dude, the worst one yet, I thought for sure - ”

Sam leaned into his brother’s embrace but kept his gaze fixed on the ground. “I’m still leaving, Dean.”

“But -“

“No, please. There’s nothing you can say, so please. I just needed to say a proper goodbye; I couldn’t let that blow up with Dad be the last memory you had of me.”

“Sammy…” Dean pleaded, but it was to no avail. Sam finally did look at him, but it was with the same steely determination Dean so often saw in John’s eyes. He never stood a chance against that resolve.

“Okay. Alright,” Dean finally acquiesced. He took one of Sam’s hands in his and was surprised at how cold it was. How long had the kid been sitting out there? “Can you help me understand, at least? I know you and Dad haven’t always gotten along -” Sam huffed but Dean pushed on, “but this thing, this crazy messed up life we have, at least we have it together, right? As a family?” He tried and failed to keep the plaintive notes from creeping into his voice.

Sam squeezed Dean’s hand once, then let it go and ran his fingers through his shaggy hair. “No, Dean, not really. I know you choose to see it like that - and honestly, if that works for you then I’m glad - but Dad moving us around constantly, leaving us alone for weeks at a time, exposing us to dangerous forces and putting guns in our hands when our fingers were barely long enough to pull the triggers; that’s not family, Dean, that’s abuse. And I’m finally in a place where I can say enough is enough.”

Dean said nothing; what could he say? They saw things differently. He could have said that home was where the heart was, or that they weren’t left alone if they had each other, or that Dean would die before he’d let Sam come to any real harm. Except, if he were to believe what Sam was saying to him, the harm his brother had already been subjected to ran much deeper than any wound inflicted by a kitsune or a werewolf.

Dean sighed and shifted out of his squat to sit next to Sam on the pavement. They stayed quietly side by side for a while, ignoring the occasional trucker that walked by and watching the sun slowly creep up the impala’s body. At one point Sam looked over his shoulder at the motel door, and Dean, understanding his worry, reassured him that their dad would be sleeping off his 12-pack binge for a while longer.

If Sam thought anything about his father drinking a dozen beers after last night’s scene, he didn’t show it, just turned back and rested his head against the top of Dean’s.

Eventually the sun danced at their feet and they both knew they had run out of time.

“Come with me,” Sam blurted.

Dean laughed without much humour. “As if they’d let me within 100 feet of Stanford. Naw, Sammy, there’s nothing for me there. What would I do?”

“I don’t know, you could get a job, you’re good with cars, or you could tend bar, you’d rake in the tips with your stupid pick-up lines…” he broke off with a laugh as Dean cuffed his ear lightly. 

“They’re not stupid if they work, baby bro.”

“Yeah, whatever. I bet you make up half those stories anyways. No one gets lucky that often with that many hot girls.”

“They do if they’re Dean Winchester, Bitch!”

“Jerk.”

It was like a punch in the gut. “Fuck, Sam. You really won’t stay?”

Sam’s smile died instantly. “No, Dean. Quit askin’.”

“Not even if I did this?” And like it was a dream Dean ignored his shuddering heart and kissed the place where Sam’s jaw was clenched so tightly, and when Sam’s mouth fell open in surprise he slotted his bottom lip in between Sam’s and licked softly.

Dean pulled away and dragged his eyes up to meet Sam’s but his younger brother’s expression was inscrutable.

“No, Dean. Not even if you did that.” Sam stood up, slung his duffel over his shoulder and with only a brief stutter of hesitation walked in the direction of the big rig trucks without looking back.

John found Dean hunched by the impala a half hour later and growled at him to get dressed so they could be on the road before the cops started patrolling the highways. “And get that mopey look off your face. We got work to do.”

“Yessir.”


End file.
